Trainium Kernel Expert - Fully Remote | Upto $90/hr

mercor; United States; Remote; USD 96,000 - 124,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is a remote contract role for a Trainium (NKI) Kernel Expert, focused on evaluating kernel development tasks for AI training models and ensuring CUDA→NKI migration fidelity and Trainium performance. You will collaborate with AI researchers to guarantee numerical correctness across datasets and optimize training workloads.

Ideal candidates have 2+ years in NKI kernel work, familiarity with AWS Neuron tooling, and a proven ability to work independently on ML training challenges.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of experience developing or optimizing kernels using NKI targeting AWS Trainium/Inferentia2 hardware.
• Strong understanding of NKI-specific development patterns and memory-hierarchy management.
• Experience assessing CUDA→NKI migration quality.
• Familiarity with Trainium-specific performance profiling.
• Experience defining or evaluating cross-platform numerical-correctness standards.

Responsibilities

• Evaluate the quality, correctness, and hardware-appropriateness of Neuron Kernel Interface (NKI) development tasks for training and evaluating AI models.
• Assess CUDA→NKI migration fidelity and Trainium-specific performance-optimization quality.
• Review cross-platform numerical-correctness standards and provide clear, rubric-based feedback.
• Collaborate with AI research teams to ensure consistency and coverage across datasets.
• Work independently and asynchronously to improve AI model performance .

Skills

NKI kernel development

AWS Trainium/Inferentia2 hardware

Memory hierarchy management

CUDA→NKI migration assessment

Performance profiling

Cross-platform numerical-correctness

Tools

AWS Neuron SDK

Neuron Compiler internals

NKI kernel libraries

Job description

About the job

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark , General Catalyst , Peter Thiel , Adam D'Angelo , Larry Summers , and Jack Dorsey .

Position: Trainium (NKI) Kernel Expert

Type: Contract

Compensation: $70–$90/hour

Location: Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Evaluate the quality, correctness, and hardware-appropriateness of Neuron Kernel Interface (NKI) development tasks for training and evaluating AI models.
• Assess CUDA→NKI migration fidelity and Trainium-specific performance-optimization quality.
• Review cross-platform numerical-correctness standards and provide clear, rubric-based feedback.
• Collaborate with AI research teams to ensure consistency and coverage across datasets.
• Work independently and asynchronously to improve AI model performance .

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 2+ years of experience developing or optimizing kernels using NKI targeting AWS Trainium/Inferentia2 hardware.
• Strong understanding of NKI-specific development patterns and memory-hierarchy management.
• Experience assessing CUDA→NKI migration quality.
• Familiarity with Trainium-specific performance profiling.
• Experience defining or evaluating cross-platform numerical-correctness standards.

Preferred

• Experience with AWS Neuron SDK , Neuron Compiler internals , or contributions to NKI kernel libraries.
• Prior CUDA or Triton kernel development.
• Familiarity with Trainium hardware specifications.
• Experience benchmarking ML training workloads on Trn1/Trn2 instances.